Wrong fairy tale
by quietlyfangirlinginthecorner
Summary: Lovino and Antonio are both trying to win the hand of a princess, When they fail to win a princess they decide to try to go on quests, or travelling, or anything to get away from their families. but they just keep on bumping into one another, so...it makes sense to travel together, right? T for now. Spamano


Tapping along the cobbled streets of the great city, Lovino wondered if this was really worth it. He was dressed up in his finest clothes, not that his normal clothes were rags, just not as nice as the clothes he'd taken care to be cleaned and pressed and ready to dazzle. The city itself was pretty, wooden beamed houses and smiling people. Today was his day. He'd been sent out into the world by his loving, if not overbearing grandfather because a royal announcement had been made, a great and sweeping announcement. The princesses were allowed to marry whomever they wished, commoner or not. All they had to do was make the younger of the two smile, or to make the older speak confidently. Lovino was not a poor man, but he was by no means a noble, he was the eldest son of a long line of traders. His two younger brothers were too young to really be sent out, though Lovino had no doubt in his mind that his youngest brother would have been the most likely to succeed. Lovino looked down at the crinkled and dirtied map in his hands. Just a few streets until he reached the old stone castle steeped in majesty and mystery. He turned a corner, not truly looking where he was going. He collided face first with a fairly solid back. Lovino rubbed his nose and got ready to fire off as many insults as he had in his vast repertoire of insults. But then the owner of the back turned around revealing beautiful green eyes and a mass of curly hair that the owner had tried to brush...that much was evident from the comb teeth still tangled in the hair.  
>"Are you alright?" Asked the man. Lovino tore his eyes away from the tangled hair and instead turned his attention to the other person.<br>"What the hell kind of person just stops in the middle of the road? huh" Lovino snapped.  
>"I'm in the line, the one for the princesses" Smiled the man somewhat awkwardly. Lovino peered around the other and saw a vast line of men. He should have known that he would not be alone in seeking the hand of a princess. Lovino let out an aggrieved groan and closed his eyes momentarily, but opened them sharpish when he felt hands messing with his hair that he had spent so long making perfect after a night of far from glamorous camping.<br>"What are you doing?" Lovino snapped, batting green eyes' hands away from his guarded locks.  
>"I messed your hair up when you bumped into me. I was fixing it" He replied simply.<br>"Don't touch it! You could be making it worse to improve your chances!" Lovino said with a scowl marring his features.  
>"Why would I do that?" asked the man.<br>Lovino decided to ignore the clearly strange man, he instead looked around for a distraction and found himself looking through a shop window. It was a bakery and a nice one at that. Lovino took a mental note of where it was and vowing to buy something when he next got a chance.  
>"My name's Antonio. What's yours?"<br>Lovino sighed and turned to back man "Lovino Vargas" He turned away, he didn't want to talk, he wanted to get this over and done with quickly so he could just traipse back home and disappoint his family and then get on with his life.  
>"That's a nice name, unusual. Have you ever met the princesses?" Antonio continued, half talking to Lovino and half filling the air with noise to dispel the silence that made him uncomfortable.<br>"Once," Lovino grunted "At a banquet" He didn't elaborate further, but that didn't matter to Antonio, he would simply ask more questions.  
>"Are they as beautiful as everyone says?"<br>Lovino rubbed a palm over his face and turned to Antonio, finally giving in to the fact that he would be answering questions as long as the other would ask them.  
>"In different ways." He replied evasively.<br>"That's good. I just hope that they're friendly."  
>Lovino snorted loudly and gave Antonio a stiff and sarcastic grin "Good luck with that. Princess Natalia is pretty straight laced, and Princess Katya is really really really shy"<br>There was a contemplative silence before Antonio brought forth a weapon more formidable than anything wielded by a knight, A grin that showed that the young man was possibly the brightest ray of sunshine that the earth had ever been blessed with. Lovino lost his train of thought for a brief moment, but quickly covered the dazed look on his face with a scowl.  
>"Then I will just have to bring my A game. You too, I don't want to go through all of this alone" Antonio said cheerfully.<br>Lovino spluttered and shot Antonio a glare "You're cocky aren't you!"  
>"Why not? life's too short to pretend that I'm not great. You should try it sometime, until then I'll just have to be cocky for both of us" Antonio stated proudly, as though he was bestowing upon Lovino a great wisdom.<br>"Mmhmm, yeah, okay, I've got some important business ignoring you over here, so." Lovino finished his statement with a very rude hand gesture. Antonio seemed to get the message and tried chatting with the man in front of them. The day started to cool and with the temperature came the evening. Lovino was beginning to wonder whether he would be seen that day or whether he would have to wait. His fears were confirmed when a pretty young lady came along handing men numbered tickets, a few footsteps behind her was a man who could only be her older brother, glaring at anyone who looked at the girl. A man winked at the little blonde, her brother shot him a murderous look "Oh for heaven's sake, she's sixteen!" He snapped, folding his arms. Lovino was handed a ticket, and when the siblings had reached the end of the line, they disappeared into the nice bakery. Lovino realized how little the queue had moved over the course of the day. It looked as though he was going to have to find an inn, or the house of his pen friend. He knew that Anri lived somewhere in the great city, and he'd rather stay with a friend than in an inn full of strangers. He decided to ask around.

Several hours of searching for an inn was fruitless and he'd had no luck asking about Anri either, all the inns were filled with those seeking favour with a princess. Lovino savagely kicked a wall and considered going back to his tent. And he would have to...if his well aimed kick hadn't knocked a tiny chip of plaster from the wall. The glaring man from earlier charged out of the bakery door and jabbed a finger at Lovino. "You're going to have to pay for that!" He yelled.  
>"Wha-" Lovino managed to choke out before glarey macgee dragged him into the bakery.<br>The girl from earlier was behind the counter with a perplexed look on her young face. "Brother, what are you doing?"  
>"He chipped our wall, Elsie, it makes our business look shabby and if our business looks shabby then customers won't come in and no customers means no money. He's going to pay to fix the chip" Said the man.<br>"Vash, you still have the plaster from last time you caught someone kicking the wall. Let him go, he looks really scared." She sighed.  
>Vash looked from the dreaded wall kicker to his little sister and then released him. Lovino rubbed his shoulder from where the shorter man had yanked him into the shop. "Thank you," Lovino grumbled "I don't suppose you know a woman called Anri, do you?"<br>Vash snorted "I hope so, we're engaged"  
>The woman herself chose that exact moment to hurry from the back room with a tray full of Belgian buns. "Vash, I've got the new order. Oh, you're with a customer?" She was a vision of beauty, blonde curly hair, padded curves from working in the bakery, and the second prettiest green eyes he'd ever seen.<br>"He was looking for you, Anri" Vash replied.  
>"I'm Lovin-" his words were cut off by a back breaking hug from the friend he'd written to since he was ten.<br>"Oh goodness, I'm so bad at remembering things, I should have thought about when you'd be here! Vash, this is my best and most inky friend. Lovino! you have to stay with us!" Anri babbled, Vash made to protest, but she simply place a finger on his lips "I'll bake those eclairs that you like" She said, batting her eyelashes. Vash stopped complaining and instead busied himself with putting away the buns with a pink dusting on his cheeks.

Lovino was prepared for whatever the following day had to offer, and he was going to ignore the gorgeous sort of green eyes of Antonio the man who had no concept of shutting the hell up.

**Sorry the first chapter is short, it's only really there to set the scene.**


End file.
